A week from now, in Jackson, Mississippi, I and thousands of others around the world will be Marching Against the Monsanto Corporation. Why? Monsanto is messing with our food and doesn’t want us to know the details of what it’s doing. How more basic an outrage do you need to go to the streets?

We will be marching simultaneously with other outraged world citizens in 32 countries.

From the March on Monsanto press release:

Josh Castro, organizer for Quito, says he wants to protect Ecuador against Monsanto’s influence, too. “Ecuador is such a beautiful place, with the richest biodiversity in the world. We will not allow this Garden of Eden to be compromised by evil multinational corporations like Monsanto. Biotechnology is not the solution to world hunger. Agroecology is.”

or..

Greece is in a precarious position right now, and Greece’s farmers falling prey to the petrochemical giant is a very real possibility.”

You might also be interested in reading this ‘Food Democracy Now’ website about Monsanto’s behavior towards farmers: http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/farmers-vs-monsanto/

Family farmers and farm organizations originally filed a lawsuit against Monsanto in March 2011 in an effort to invalidate Monsanto’s patents and protect organic and non-GMO family farmers from unwanted genetic contamination of their crops and from Monsanto’s aggressive patent infringement lawsuits.

I find it unconscionable and highly suspicious that a food supplier would not want us to know it is including GMO ingredients to the foods on our grocery shelves.  Isn’t the the whole reason for food labels?

Here’s a schedule of the March Against Monsanto events:
http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/p/blog-page.html

The list is growing longer every day.

Monsanto is by no means alone.  Here’s a list of the ‘Big 6′ and other countries around the world known to be researching Frankengenes:
http://www.biofortified.org/resources/genetic-engineering-companies/

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Guest post by David Garber

I have fun with numbers… sometimes they’re shocking, other times they’re very amusing. I’m not good with them, I just enjoy them. So, with that in mind, here’s a few you might want to use at your next social gathering.

0. The grizzly bear is the official state animal of California but no grizzly bears have been seen there since 1922. Maybe it’s time for a new state animal — The elusive Darryl Issa cretin is my suggestion.

48. That’s the percentage of all Americans who are currently considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty. Remove Mitt Romney and the Koch brothers from the calculations and the number is substantially higher.

600. That’s average number of cans of soda each American consumes in a year. Only 22% of those aluminum cans are recycled. What’s the matter with you people? Cans don’t grow on trees!

2.4. That’s how many times more the average person in the US spends on health care than in the UK. It’s evident that the difference must be in dental preventative hygiene.

3. Montana has three times as many cows as it does people. That might explain why politics in that state is “udderly” ridiculous.

66. No, not Route 66 — Today, 66% of all Americans are considered to be overweight. Remove Chris Christie and Rush Limbaugh from the equation and it’s down to 47%. Still to high.

25. That’s the percent of all U.S. employees with Internet access who visit pornography websites while they are at work. So next time you go to the office, look around and see who’s smiling — and who’s perspiring.

52. That’s the percentage of children living in Cleveland that are below the poverty level. I guess we should ask Betty White why her show’s called Hot in Cleveland. Doesn’t sound like things are so hot to me.

167,000. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, that’s the number of Americans who have more than $200,000 of student loan debt. But don’t worry. The Republicans are trying to pass a bill to double interest rates on student loans. If they’re successful, the average student will be paid off just in time for social security.

16.5 — There are 19 million new cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia in the United States every single year. With our US population of 320 million, we’ll all have one of those diseases in 16.5 years.

Okay, hope you had fun with numbers like I did.

For the past 25 years, David Garber has been serving as the show runner and or writer on some of television’s biggest hits… Saved By The Bell, Power Rangers, 227, Bill Cosby Show and many other network series. His writing and producing have also netted David two very prestigious awards:the PRISM AWARD and the TV CRITICS AWARD – TV SPECIAL OF THE YEAR. Currently he’s authoring a short story series called “A Few Minutes With…”

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The Book Booth is a weekly feature at The Political Carnival, relat
ing news, notes, and reflections from the world of books and publishing. SeattleDan, along with his wife, SeattleTammy, are operators of both an on-line bookstore, as well a brick and mortar in small town Washington State. Both have been in the book business since shortly after the Creation, or close to 6000 years now.

Slowly we move towards summer and a man’s heart turns to what he loves best, and that is finding a new book to read. I think I’ll be reading John William’s neglected “classic”, Stoner and I’ll be letting you know if I concur.

In the meantime, Amazon is still having problems with their pesky workers in Germany, where it seems the Union is demanding better pay and working conditions for 900 of their members. Let’s hope that on this side of the pond, their workers here start agitating for the same.

The folks at the on-going (since 1971!) Ploughshares literary magazine had an amusing article for authors on what to do when they visit a bookstore.

If you do happen to wander into a bookstore this weekend, you will probably see stacks and stacks of Dan Brown’s latest Robert Langdon thriller, Inferno. Anticipating that the critics will loathe this latest opus, Michael Deacon of the Telegraph assures us he won’t be joining into that fracas.

For a long time now, the concept of “genre” has been a topic of some controversy and vilification, in favor of the literary. And while I don’t think Dan Brown will ever be esteemed as a good writer, there are some who work in “genre” and are very fine writers. John Le Carre comes to mind. The Guardian has this take.

I enjoy a glass of wine from time to time. But I’ve never heard of wine glass charms. But apparently they exist to decorate your finer stems and now you can purchase them with book covers. Kind of cool, really.

Even cooler are the book designs Flavorwire’s Emily Temple featured by Richard Tuttle. They are available for purchase, though they are rather pricey.

And speaking of book covers, ABEBooks has this fun video on The Great Gatsby and its various incarnations.

I take it that Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of Gatsby has opened to some big box office. Which prompted Publishers Weekly to consider what the biggest book to movie flops were. There are many to choose from, but it’s hard to argue with Battlefield Earth.

Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe were all blessed by having the legendary book editor Maxwell Perkins to work on their manuscripts. Unfortunately his life has never been filmed. Or it could be that most editors don’t have dramatic enough lives. But apparently some have and Word&Film singled out some of the better ones. Now I want to see Hudsucker Proxy again.

Enjoy your weekend with a good book and let us know what is on your nightstand.

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h/t Cat.

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Rob Rogers

Clay Bennett

Joe Heller

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Via.

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Well, it’s just me and my one and a half arms this weekend. Gotta has taken a silver bird to one of her sons graduation and left me here with just the generosity of guest bloggers. Be kind.

Sending theme park fans round the loop! Hilarious facial expressions of roller coaster riders captured as they try out record-breaking attraction

Video- Drunk driving: Why is MADD among critics of lower alcohol limit?

Office colleagues may be the best friends you EVER make – especially if you work in a stressful environment

Video- Woman smacks cop so she can go to jail and quit smoking

Deep sea ‘gold rush’ moves closer

5 Commencement Guests Who are Speaking at Colleges You Wouldn’t Expect

Divided by television: A quarter of couples spend the evening in separate rooms so they can watch different shows

Feds grant $400,000 for smoke-detecting underwear

Video- Frustrated caller catalogues call centre menu options

Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey explained in 1968 Howard Johnson’s children’s menu

Glorious pic via Cat.

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As you know, Paddy has mounting doctor bills, and TPC has mounting TPC bills.

We recently tried to update the look and mechanics of The Political Carnival, but ended up running into so many tech issues that we had to stop, go back to our old look, and hire someone to help us find our way out of our technical house of mirrors.

Which brings us to this:

We’re long overdue for our quarterly fundraiser, mainly because we are so reluctant to have our hands out, but, as Nickelodeon used to say, “A kid’s gotta do what a kid’s gotta do.”

So if you are able, if you are so inclined, please donate. Paddy, Lucian, and I have expenses up to our collective chins and can’t do this without your help.

Thank you ahead of time for your consistent kindness and generosity. Without you, there would be no us.

or Email us here for a snail mail address. THANKS!

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Guest post by David Garber

It’s bad enough that for the past five years, Congress, led by the Republicans has failed in their duties to provide us with the services they were elected to give us.

Instead, they have lied, stonewalled, blocked, sabotaged filibustered, prevented job growth, killed sane gun control, and generally driven this country into the toilet. A comfortable place for the old, white, hacks of that party, but not for the rest of us.

What we got instead is no immigration plan, no tax reform, a gigantic fiscal cliff, more tax relief for the rich, less air quality restrictions, a phony Benghazi scandal, a made-up IRS bruhaha, and a cut back in social services, especially for the poor. On a scale of 1 to 10, Congress is mining record negative numbers and falling fast.

Oh, one other thing they did do — actually 30+ time now — they voted on bills to void or vacate the Affordable Healthcare Act. 36 Votes. Are you crapping me?

When are these asshats going to get it. We want action on pressing matters, not political issues… We want fairness, not partisanship.

Isn’t it about time we start taking names and arm ourselves with our votes to see to it that these lackies and political slackers are driven from office? Let’s start at the top. Boehner, McConnell, and work our way down as they come up for re-election.

Let’s stop rewarding obstructionism. Get with the program. Down with asshats — let’s “Dump the chump!”

For the past 25 years, David Garber has been serving as the show runner and or writer on some of television’s biggest hits… Saved By The Bell, Power Rangers, 227, Bill Cosby Show and many other network series. His writing and producing have also netted David two very prestigious awards:the PRISM AWARD and the TV CRITICS AWARD – TV SPECIAL OF THE YEAR. Currently he’s authoring a short story series called “A Few Minutes With…”

The post Enough Already appeared first on The Political Carnival.

Via.

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I’ll believe when it happens.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is increasingly focused on the month of July as the time to exercise the so-called “nuclear option” and revisit filibuster reform, and he has privately told top advisers that he’s all but certain to take action if the Senate GOP blocks three upcoming key nominations, a senior Senate Democratic aide familiar with his thinking tells me.

Reid has privately consulted with President Obama on the need to revisit filibuster reform, and the President has told the Majority Leader that he will support the exercising of the nuclear option if Reid opts for it, the aide says, adding that senior Democrats expect the President to publicly push for it as well. “If Senator Reid decides to do something on nominations, the president has said he’ll be there to support him,” the aide says.

Reid is eyeing a change to the rules that would do away with the 60-vote threshold on all judicial and executive branch nominations, the aide says, on the theory that this is a good way to immediately break an important logjam in Washington — without changing the rules when it comes to legislation.

“This would take away the right to filibuster on nominations,” the aide says. “All executive branch and judicial nominations would be subject to majority votes. He would not do it on legislative items.”

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Tim Campbell

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As you know, Paddy has mounting doctor bills, and TPC has mounting TPC bills.

We recently tried to update the look and mechanics of The Political Carnival, but ended up running into so many tech issues that we had to stop, go back to our old look, and hire someone to help us find our way out of our technical house of mirrors.

Which brings us to this:

We’re long overdue for our quarterly fundraiser, mainly because we are so reluctant to have our hands out, but, as Nickelodeon used to say, “A kid’s gotta do what a kid’s gotta do.”

So if you are able, if you are so inclined, please donate. Paddy, Lucian, and I have expenses up to our collective chins and can’t do this without your help.

Thank you ahead of time for your consistent kindness and generosity. Without you, there would be no us.

or Email us here for a snail mail address. THANKS!

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Via.

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MStreeter

Joe Heller

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